Silence fell the moment the question escaped my mouth.
Everyone exchanged uncertain and contemplative looks, their pre-apocalypse values clashing hard with their post-apocalyptic ones.
It was tough for them—people who had never had to decide the life and death of a man, no matter how demented he was—to suddenly choose now, especially the majority of the women and Hershel.
Running my eyes through them, I could see the clear hesitation written across the faces of Lori, Carol, Beth, Amy, Patricia, Jenny, and Hershel.
They were staring down at the wooden table, shifting in their chairs, avoiding eye contact with anyone who looked like they wanted blood.
Then suddenly, a loud snort was heard from the back wall.
I glanced at the source. It was Merle, leaning his back against a window frame with his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
"You bunch of goodie two-shoes," Merle sneered, shaking his head in absolute disgust as he stepped forward. "You really hesitating to end the life of that asshole? A guy who came this close to wiping us all out?!"
He made a tiny 'this close' gesture with his fingers, holding them a fraction of an inch apart in front of his face.
"If not for Michonne's intervention, we'd all be laying in a shallow mass grave right now!"
Merle barked. "You folks gotta make something straight in those righteous heads of yours."
He paused for a bit, glaring down at the hesitating group who couldn't even look him in the eyes.
He snapped at them, his voice echoing off the timber walls:
"You can't afford forgiveness in this shitty world!"
Silence fell again.
This time it was out of the sheer shame that most felt at this moment, no doubt.
Heads dropped even lower.
Carol stared at her hands, and Jenny squeezed her eyes shut.
"As much as I hated to admit it, Merle's right," I said, drawing everyone's attention back toward me.
"The Governor made a grave mistake, and it wasn't his first time either. That makes it completely impossible for us to just let him go with a slap on the wrist or a warning. If we let him walk, he won't learn a lesson. He'll just gather whatever stray psychos he can find, build another army, and come back here in the middle of the night to put a bullet in every single one of us. Trust me, he is more than capable of that."
The memory of the prison arc from the main timeline flashed through my head—the tank crushing the fences, the fallen bodies, Hershel lying in the dirt with his throat slit, and the whole place burning to ash.
I wasn't going to let that happen here.
Not on my watch.
"Then what do you want us to do, Zephyr?" Hershel asked, his deep voice heavy with sorrow as he rested both hands on the handle of his cane.
"We can't just arbitrarily decide the death of a man just like that. If we execute him in cold blood, we'd be setting a dangerous precedent for this community. We'd be no better than the people outside those gates."
"We are better than them, Hershel," I said, looking the old man straight in the eye.
"Because we don't kill without an absolute justifiable cause. The Governor provided us plenty. He made his bed; now he gets to lay on it."
I paused for a bit before I continued.
"And there won't be any precedent, Hershel, because this isn't a random execution, and everyone in this room knows the exact severity of what he's done. He tried to murder us, he murdered others, and he kept human heads in glass tanks for fun. This isn't petty revenge. It's survival, our survival"
I looked around at the whole room, taking a deep breath.
"We're going to put it to a fair vote," I declared. "Right here, right now. Everyone who thinks the Governor needs to be executed for his crimes, raise your hand."
I raised my hand high into the air first.
Shane didn't hesitate for a single second; his hand went straight up.
Merle slapped his hand into the air with a dark chuckle, and Daryl raised his right arm with a grim, steady look.
Rick looked down at the table for a moment, swallowed hard, and then slowly raised his hand as well.
One by one, the rest followed.
Michonne raised hers, Glenn, T-Dog, Morales, Jim, Tom, Dr. Jenner, Dr. Gale, Andrea, Amy, Patricia, Carol, Maggie, and the rest of the farm crew all raised their hands.
Out of the entire room, only five hands stayed down: Hershel, Annette, Dale, Lori, and Beth.
Rick turned his head and stared over at Lori, who just lowered her head even further, completely ashamed to look him in the eye, but still refusing to lift her arm.
Dale just kept his eyes glued to his lap, his jaw set tight in quiet protest.
I looked at Hershel, who looked more his years at the moment.
"I'm sorry, Hershel," I said quietly, lowering my hand back down to my side. "But it looks like the majority wins."
Hershel just let out a long, heavy sigh, shaking his white head in resignation.
"May God have mercy on our souls," he whispered to himself.
Dale reached over and patted Hershel gently on the shoulder, offering what little comfort he could.
"All right," I said, clearing my throat loudly to break the heavy tension hanging in the room and shift everyone's focus back to the immediate future.
"Now that that's settled, one last thing before the meeting comes to an end."
The group perked up, looking toward me with tired, watchful eyes.
"A week from now, once things settle down and Woodbury gets their new leadership straightened out, a few of us are going back to their settlement," I announced.
"We're sending a delegation to discuss a formal alliance and set up trade routes between our two communities."
The news made everyone perk up immediately, even Hershel, who raised his head to listen closely.
A real alliance meant trade, extra resources, and a bigger safety net for everyone on the farm.
"We won't pick who goes today," I continued, resting my hands flat on the wooden table.
"The exact delegation will be decided a few days before the trip, once we know who's needed here to guard the perimeter and who can be spared for the road."
I looked around the room one last time to make sure nobody had anything else to add.
"Meeting's over. Get back to your work."
Everyone stood up, chairs scraping against the floorboards, and began filing out of the farmhouse into the bright late afternoon sun.
(To be continued...)